


it's a bad night, I don't want to be here (let me be here for you)

by Shadowmightwrite17



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Author is having a Bad Night, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, Zuko doesn't want to die but he's really not in a much better place, Zuko is very loved, and their coping mechanism is writing their favorite characters dealing with bad nights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:20:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21986539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowmightwrite17/pseuds/Shadowmightwrite17
Summary: Zuko is having a bad night, and in favor of some worse coping mechanisms, he takes a late-night walk in 40F degree weather. He comes home to a worried Iroh, getting that love and support he needs. A few days later he meets up with Sokka and talks through the bad night. Sokka listens to him and shows how much he cares.Everyone deserves love on their bad nights.
Relationships: Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Zuko & Mental Health
Comments: 30
Kudos: 336





	it's a bad night, I don't want to be here (let me be here for you)

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warnings: Depression, Suicidal Thinking, Disassociation
> 
> Zuko isn't necessarily suicidal, but he's in that place where you don't care much about what happens to you and almost wish something bad would happen. I think people don't realize how bad a place this is, but I've definitely been there and it gets better, I promise.
> 
> Mostly this is me having a bad night and projecting, and because it's so late my editing/grammar is not up to par, so I apologize.

There’s a chill in the wind biting at his nose and cheeks. It cuts through his thin hoodie and sinks into his bones. He ignores it, burying his hands in his pockets and turning up the music on his phone. The music’s loud enough to drown out the horrible feeling of hearing every breath and every step and every heartbeat.

It’s after one in the morning. He shouldn’t even be awake, let alone wandering through the streets of his neighborhood looking at the Christmas decorations.

But there’s a distant feeling in his brain, a fog, a layer of cotton settling between his brain and his skull.

There’s a nervous thrumming in his body that says he needs to move, and until he exhausts himself to the point of crashing, he won’t sleep. And even if he does sleep, it won't feel like enough. He'll still be on the edge of chronic exhaustion he knows so well.

Winter seems to bring out the worst out of his mental health.

His breath is white and puffy, and the chill is starting to bother him less. There’s a weird, quiet part of him that plays with the idea of hypothermia. The cold sinking in until he can’t feel it anymore and exhaustion finally kicks in until he can sleep. It looks a little dramatic in his head, laying in the snow and staring up at a sky full of stars until he can finally close his eyes.

(even if there is no snow tonight, even if there’s never snow here)

Someone would find him of course.

Of course.

He doesn’t want to die.

But sometimes skirting the line with death makes him feel a little better.

That’s not something he’s ever going to say out loud.

* * *

_(earlier that night)_

It was just a bad day.

There was no reason for it. Nothing bad happened to him. It was just a bad day. He woke up in the early morning hours, way earlier than he should, and he knew he felt off, and he knew he couldn’t go back to bed.

He resigned himself to writing off the day, accepting that there wasn’t much he could do.

He tried to keep himself distracted. Reading, YouTube videos, music, but eventually, he ran out of distractions and there was still so much time. So much time before the day would end, and he just wants this day to end. But it wouldn’t. He just sat there in bed, staring at nothing and everything and trying to will himself into doing something. Anything to make this distant feeling stop infecting his brain.

He almost texted Sokka, but even though Sokka is a night owl by nature, he’s got to wake up early in the morning for his seasonal job that’ll only last a few more weeks. He couldn’t text Sokka.

He sat in bed, willing himself to do something.

Wanting to move, to get rid of all this nervous energy building in him, finding a place far away from the numbing distance.

He told himself going out was bad idea. Had to make a whole list of reasons why it was bad.

_It’s cold out. I’m barefoot and wearing pajamas. I don’t have the energy to change my clothes but I want to just walk outside. And if I go for a walk I’ll want a cigarette, and I finally quit, I told everyone I quit and if I smoke again I’ll disappoint them. I don’t want my clothes to smell like cigarettes. I don’t want to take another shower just to get the smell out. Going out is a bad idea._

There were worse things calling his name.

The urge to chase his old triggers down the rabbit hole of the internet, because self-destruction is his natural go-to.

He put on a hoodie, grabbed his headphones and his phone, but left his cigarettes at home.

* * *

The lights are on when they shouldn’t be, a warm yellow glow calling him home. He left them off and locked the door behind him. He was only going to be gone for fifteen minutes, a half-hour at most. Nobody was supposed to notice, nobody was supposed to miss him.

He stands on the sidewalk, arms crossed but still, his breath coming out in white puffs. He looks up at the house and wishes someone had noticed his midnight walks a long time ago. Or that nobody would ever notice.

He takes a steadying breath and decides it’s time to go inside.

The door’s unlocked, welcoming him home.

“Zuko?” Uncle calls, standing up from the couch.

Zuko can’t make himself look up at his Uncle, can’t bear to see the disappointment in his eyes.

It took him years to learn to expect disappointment over anger.

“Where have you been?” Uncle asks, closer now, within arm’s reach, but not touching. He’s learned to tell when Zuko can comfortably accept physical contact and when it will send him into a rush of terror. “It’s nearly forty degrees out, Nephew.”

Zuko thinks he could sink under that low admonishing tone.

“I went for a walk. I needed to clear my head.”

“And with not nearly enough clothing to keep you warm,” Iroh says. “Let’s get you warmed up.”

Zuko shuts his eyes and doesn’t move from where he’s standing. A step forward feels like too much effort.

The gentle weight of a blanket falls over his shoulders and pulls him a step forward, almost like a sling. “On the couch,” Uncle says, just stern enough that Zuko can’t argue.

He sits and pulls his hood over his head, like a shroud he hopes will protect him.

From what?

“I’m going to make some tea.”

“I don’t need any tea,” Zuko whispers.

“It’ll warm you faster.”

And he can’t make himself argue.

He can’t quite feel the warmth of the house chasing away the cold, not yet. He was out too long. Maybe it’s not hypothermia, but he knows he skirted the line too far. The line he makes himself promise not to cross. He’s not allowed to worry Uncle.

But Zuko knows he fails at that almost every day.

Uncle comes back, not with tea but with another blanket and a heating pad. He makes Zuko hug the heating pad to his chest along with a pillow. And Zuko’s never going to admit that it does make him feel a little bit better.

“What did you need to clear your mind of?” Uncle asks.

“If the point was to stop thinking about it, I don’t think talking will help,” Zuko mutters.

He hears a sigh and manages to finally look up at Uncle.

There’s no disappointment, only sadness and concern. It’s almost worse. But Zuko knows it means he cares, and that’s something he needs.

He needs to be reminded that someone cares.

He went too long without someone like that. Everyone who was supposed to care left or hurt him. He doesn’t know which one is worse. He wishes he wasn’t so desperate for someone to prove they cared.

That’s why he thinks about skirting the line so much.

The anxious thrumming of energy faded to numb indifference, and now that indifference is melting away under love, and now he’s starting to shiver. Or becoming aware that he’s shivering. Home feels a little warmer. He could blame it on the blankets and the heating pad, accuse Uncle of turning up the thermostat, but he knows it’s not that. Home is warm.

He does accept the jasmine tea Uncle made him. Jasmine’s his favorite, and Uncle knows that.

Even if Zuko has never once said it aloud, or even hinted at a preference.

“How many times have you done this?” Uncle asks.

“A few.” He’s not going to directly lie. He couldn’t get away with that if he tried, and he doesn’t want to try.

“You’re too good at it. I didn’t hear you leave, and you made sure to lock the door behind you, and if I hadn’t thought to check on you, I never would have suspected.”

“More than a few,” he admits.

“Always late at night?”

He nods.

“Ever this cold?”

“A few times, lately. I didn’t start doing this until last summer.”

Which says a lot more than it should.

“That isn’t healthy,” Uncle says.

“I can’t find a healthier thing. It’s just better than other things.”

He’s hoping Uncle won’t ask what those other things are.

Maybe he’ll guess, maybe he’ll assume.

Just please don’t ask.

“Maybe next time you think of doing this, you can ask me for a better idea?” Uncle suggests.

“Maybe.”

Not likely.

“Maybe you could try talking to someone again.”

He’s talked to nearly a dozen therapists over the years, and none of them have helped much. It’s cyclic. He doesn’t trust them, but they try to prove he can. Somehow they manage to get him talking. And he talks. And talks. They have solutions. Behavioral therapy and coping mechanisms and routine changes. For a while he feels better, and then he feels worse. He stops seeing them, says they’re not helping, and Uncle can’t make him see them again.

He’s taken medication before, and that helps, but there are times when it doesn’t. Times when his brain chemistry takes a new direction and tilts out of balance, and whatever he was taking to hold that fragile balance needs to be changed.

“No,” he whispers.

“Zuko—”

“Please?”

Uncle sighs. “Zuko, there is no shame in asking for help. You’re not a burden for needing help. More than anything, I want to see you happy.”

Zuko can feel tears stinging his right eye, his good eye. He swallows, choking on his words. “I know,” he says in a strangled whisper, and leans again Uncle.

He lets Uncle hug him, and he doesn’t cry.

He finally feels warm, and tired, so Uncle lets him sleep.

He decides to sleep on the couch, wrapped up in as many blankets as Uncle can pile onto him. Uncle turns off the lights and retires to his room, but Zuko knows he never head the bedroom door close.

That’s okay.

He’s only drifting for a few moments before sleep finally sets in.

\- - -

Sometime in the space between needing desperately to leave the house and actually doing it, Zuko wrote Sokka a letter. All the things he needed to say right then and there, to Sokka, but couldn’t because he didn’t want to bother Sokka.

It’s a rambling mess, and Zuko hasn’t looked at it the last few days, but he’s thinking of showing it to Sokka. He needs someone to hear it and tell him he’s crazy but that he’ll be okay.

Because Sokka will tell him when the things he thinks aren’t normal, but in a Sokka way, and then he’ll tell Zuko that he’s here and that Zuko will be okay.

He and Sokka have plans to hang out on Friday night.

“You okay?” Sokka asks as he drives out of Zuko’s neighborhood.

He wasn’t fooled for a second by the smile Zuko wore. He saw Zuko’s tired eyes and his weary slump against the seat, and he knew.

Because Sokka knows how to see these things.

“Not yet,” Zuko whispers, because Sokka can almost make everything better. Only a few exceptions remain.

Sokka drives around town for a bit. They’re picking up their favorite foods and drinks. Fried chicken so thoroughly coated in fire flakes that it looks red, and jasmine tea for Zuko. Salty jerky for Sokka, and a strong coffee too. He’s counting on this night running deep into the early morning hours.

Zuko eats while Sokka drives to a park on a hill with a surprisingly beautiful view. For suburbia. Sokka maintains that nothing will ever compare to the wonder of his home in Alaska, but it’s nice sitting up here and watching the orange city lights twinkle from afar.

Zuko’s quiet for a long time, fidgeting with the white wax bag the chicken came in.

“Do you have the mental-emotional spoons to deal with my bullshit mental health?” Zuko whispers.

It’s kind of a thing.

Sokka has depression, anxiety, and ADHD. Zuko has depression, anxiety, and PTSD. And they know what it’s like to feel weighed down and know there’s nothing in you to give to anyone else.

“Yeah, I do. What’s up?” Sokka says.

“I had a bad night, a few nights ago. I wanted to text you, but it was too late.”

“I would have answered. I wouldn’t mind. You’re not a burden, no matter what that brain tells you sometimes.”

“I know,” Zuko whispers, staring out the window at the lights, “but I couldn’t make myself do it.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Zuko makes a tight, almost whimpering sound in the back of his throat.

“I can’t put it into words now,” he whispers. “I wrote you a letter. Sort of. I wrote all the things I wanted to say to you but couldn’t make myself say.”

“Do you want me to read it now?”

Zuko looks down at the wax paper in his stilled hands and nods once. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. He wrote the note in his phone’s notes app, figuring it couldn’t be lost there, but that he could leave it there without a visual reminder.

_Things I want to say to someone but can’t because it’s late and I feel bad._

_It’s.. my brain feels not good. It’s been not good all day. But it feels worse now. I just feel… it’s like I’m not here anymore, but I’m all here too much. Everything’s distant, but it’s unending. I just want to be asleep so tonight can be over already… I almost said I just want it to be over, but those are not good words and I don’t mean them the way they sound, the way people think they sound._

_I want to not be in this moment of time and space. I want to be in some other moment in time and space, any moment. I want my feelings back, but also not… does that make sense?_

_I want to not be here, but not like thaaaaaat_

_I want to be in that space that’s almost here but also not and I don’t have to think about now or then or anything or me. Like being asleep, but more asleep. No dreams, just that soft feeling of asleep and distant_

_I promise I don’t want to die, I just need to almost do that_

_That’s so fucked up_

_I’m sorry_

_I promise i'm not suicidal!_

_Just_

_Just_

_!!!!!!!!!!!!!_

_I need to almost not be here, and then be happy I’m still here_

_I’m so fucking sorry this is a mess you shouldn’t have to read this but I just need to say this so I can not feel that thing anymore and just be okay again_

_I’m like two seconds away from going outside, but that’s a bad idea bad_

_Reason’s I’m Not Going Outside:_

_It’s cold out. I’m barefoot and wearing pajamas. I don’t have the energy to change my clothes but I want to just walk outside. And if I go for a walk I’ll want a cigarette, and I finally quit, I told everyone I quit and if I smoke again I’ll disappoint them. I don’t want my clothes to smell like cigarettes. I don’t want to take another shower just to get the smell out. Going out is a bad idea._

_To be honest if I could get away with walking outside barefoot and in my pajamas without getting too cold I would_

_But I also want to be cold_

_I’m gonna take a walk and hope that clears my head. I promise to dress warm and not bring my cigarettes this time_

_Okay, I’m back, almost. Almost home safe. Promise. Maybe still cold. Fingers are very cold. But I’m back_

Sokka rereads it, just to reabsorb it.

They’ve talked a lot about mental health and bad days. They’ve seen each other through so many bad days and anxiety attacks and flashbacks. Sokka’s seen the moments where Zuko just isn’t here, not as here as he should be, but this is the most honest, unguarded way Zuko’s ever expressed that feeling.

Sokka knows he’s never understood until now, and may never fully understand. He’s never seen that deep inside pit of Zuko’s brain like this.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for that, but I’m really thankful that you wrote it down so I could know,” Sokka says in that soft voice he knows will really get through to Zuko.

Zuko won’t look at him. It feel like Zuko wants to sink into the car door, halfway between in the warm car with Sokka, and halfway outside in the cold. That distance is settling in.

“Would it help if I hugged you?” Sokka asks.

Zuko makes himself give one shaky nod before he leans into Sokka.

“You’re okay,” Sokka whispers as Zuko shakes. “I know it doesn’t feel like it, but you're okay now. You're safe. I will make sure you’re okay. I won’t leave you. I promise.”

“I know,” Zuko chokes out.

“Thank you for telling me,” Sokka whispers into Zuko’s hair. “It helps, knowing how you feel, knowing how your brain thinks.”

He can hear Zuko sniffle, his back to Sokka’s chest, his arms wrapped over his chest but under Sokka’s. He slowly rests his head on Sokka’s shoulder, looking up at the ceiling with that distant look.

“I don’t want to float away tonight,” Zuko whispers.

“I promise to stay,” Sokka whispers back.

He presses a small kiss to Zuko’s temple and holds him a little tighter.

Zuko finds the strength inside to twist around and wrap his arms around Sokka, to hold on, and know, truly, he’s not about to float away.

“I love you,” Zuko says, feeling solid and warm.

“I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> First Note: It gets better, I promise it does. Better doesn't mean your mental illness is magically cured, but that over time you learn how to handle it better. Sometimes you have spells of worse mental health, and spells of better mental health. Over time you coping mechanisms get better. My coping mechanisms eight years ago were so much worse than this.
> 
> This was actually written on two bad nights I had this month. The first and third scene was written a little over a week ago on a bad night for me. For a long time, one of my coping mechanisms was to put my headphones in and walk late at night and smoke a little. I quit smoking in June, but tonight is the first night I had a serious craving again. So I wrote my best friend a letter of some of my thoughts, which inspired the second and forth scene. I don't know if I'll let him read it, but it helped.
> 
> Sometimes projecting your bad nights and your coping mechanisms and ideal support system is a valid way to cope.
> 
> If you want to leave comments, of any kind, I fully welcome it. You can tell me about your bad nights, tell me fun stories that make you happy, tell me anything, you're good. Low key hoping I wake up to some emails in the morning.


End file.
